Rangers F.C. (South Africa)

Rangers FC' was a South African football (soccer) club based in Johannesburg. Rangers FC won the Castle Cup in 1959 and played the final in 1967. Their best season in the National Football League was the inaugural season in 1959, when they finished Runners-up to Durban City. The club merged with Johannesburg Ramblers for the 1963-season.

Some super skilled players of Rangers Football Club, which was a semi professional soccer team in the 1960- late 1980s include amongst others Ronnie, Koekemoor, Archie Soekoe, Hilton Grainger, Percy Owen, Des Bakos, Brian Mason, Roy Jones, Bobby Viljoen, Mike Connell (Also later played for Tampa Bay Rowdies in the USA), Booby Arber, Henry Hill, Gerry Farrel, Mike Hugo, Dennis Snoyman, Russell Cruickshank, with excellent youth teams including Keith Viljoen, Ivor Viljoen, Angelo Nicolaides, Billy Harrison, Kevin Hunter, George Peters, Greg Daubern, Douglas Walls and other talented players in the 1970s to 1980s. Some players such as Angelo Nicolaides also later played for the Portuguese Club Lusitano that shared the Rand Stadium as a home ground in Johannesburg, and another club of note Jewish Guild, based at Balfour Park stadium. Talented players such as Keith Viljoen, Ivor Viljoen, Mike Connell, Angelo Nicolaides and Duggie Walls, major involvement was mainly at top youth level and partly senior within Rangers FC.

Julie Kaplan was wonderful midfielder for Jewish Guild and played alongside the football giant Mordechai Spiegler, one of Israel’s most famous footballers who is often considered a national sporting icon.These were also other First division clubs with some great players such as Hellenic in Cape Town, that had Ian St John (ex Liverpool) and George Eastham (Ex Stoke City) playing at this time. Durban City had the great Johnny Haynes (ex Fulham) playing for them and watching derby matches against Durban United was an excellent outing. Hellenic Versus Cape Town City was also a tantalsing prospect to watch with Hellenic's international German stars in action - Arno Steffenhagen, Volkmaar Gross, and Bernd Patzke, against Cape Town city greats Gary France, Geoff Hurst, Donald Gie and Ian Towers.

The best coach Rangers ever had was Alex Forbes. In his playing career he played for Sheffield United and also Arsenal in the late 1940s and he was also the Arsenal youth team coach in England for a while. Forbes then went on to coach Orlando Pirates in 1975 and later other local teams like Highlands Park, Western Tigers and Swaraj. Mike Connell was an incredible world class midfielder and had a very keen mind creating openings for other to score many goals at Rangers and in Tampa Bay, USA. Angelo Nicolaides was also a super strategist, and when playing for the Portuguese club Lusitano, he guided his side to lots of goals through his crafty midfield play and distribution of pinpoint passes to the strikers. Hilton Grainger, Des Bakos and Bobby Viljoen were strikers of note at Rangers and would have fitted well in any contemporary top English premier League side- they scored some amazing goals! Then there was Colin Viljoen, who went on to play for Ipswich in England another proudly South African. Durban City had greats such as, George Wootten, Tony Macedo, Derek Cowden, Jim Scott, Johnny Haynes, and Budgie Byrne, that were formidable to play against and watch in action.

In 1985, the National Soccer League (NSL) was formed as a non-racial, nationwide league, uniting clubs from different racial backgrounds.This NSL later evolved into the Premier Soccer League (PSL) in 1996, which is now the top-flight professional league in South Africa. So, the “white football league” didn’t survive as a separate entity—it was effectively absorbed into the unified, non-racial football system after apartheid.

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